Skip to main content

Featured

The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...

Discordant Voices; Luvai's translation

Here comes a bit more than transliteration.

MIOYO LUGANO LUGANO GIMBUHI.

Dada, mioyo lugano lugano gimbuhi
Ngihulira mu liavukana
Sigiveeye muvuhambaani

Mulala gung'usaa nyenye
Kumanya goosi vugira kweera

Ugundi gungayitsa ubuhinda, ubunyali no luyali
Vioosi nivivoheywe mu lududu lwa mavaha madoto
Mu ligotwa litaveeye nelihenda.

Ugundi nagwo gunangiranga mirembe gitabimwa
Ubwikutsiri vugira vuvitiriri
Ubuhambani mu goosi nende liegomba agayanzizaa geng'ine.

Dada, yaga gavoola ki?
Mwoyo gwange mwene goveeye ki?
Ni mwoyo ki gugiingi ageligali?
Manya ndi mwoyo gwo vugadi?

Muyiingu ive, muyanze wange,
Ulavula kudidikanira lisoma
Nokumiramira agakiri kulaviritswa no kudinyiritswa,
Nkano, Anzigale, wakamanyi
Kuva mwoyo no kuhulira mioyo lugano lugano.

Original Poem by Chahilu.

Comments